The following is a guest post from Martin of Studenomics and more recently, Start Freelancing Now. Martin has been writing about how you can find a writing gig and other fun topics related to make more money!
Ah you got to love being in your 20s. Life is amazing. You can get away with anything. You don’t care about much. Often your biggest concern is figuring out where to go next Saturday night. I usually decide this at the last minute since I don’t like to commit too much. The next biggest problem becomes curing your hangover. I’ll say it again — you got to love being in your 20s.
With that being said, you can do lots of cool things in your 20s to set yourself up for the future. Who wants to stress about money in their 30s? Who wants to work into their 60s? Certainly not me. I want to help you set your life up so that you can enjoy the rest of your life.
What are the most powerful moves that you can make in your 20s?
Invest in yourself.
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin
I’m the biggest promoter of investing in yourself because I totally believe in it. When you improve your skill set and learn new abilities, you open yourself up to a whole new world of opportunities that you may have never thought of.
How can you invest in yourself?
- Read new books on completely new topics.
- Learn a language.
- Attend a conference related to your field.
- Travel.
- Take someone fascination out for dinner.
- Take a side course.
How will you invest in yourself?
Save a bit of your money.
Spending money is fun. Increasing your income is exciting. The trick is to learn how to save a bit of your money. Saving money isn’t the sexiest topic, but it sucks to not have any money in your online savings account when you really need it.
Before you think that I’m sort frugality zealot, I swear to you that I’m not. I believe in optimizing your spending and using credit to your advantage. I went out of my way in college to research the best credit cards for students so that I could build by credit for the future, allowing me to invest in real estate.
All I’m suggesting is that you put a little money away for a rainy day. Life can throw us some curve balls. Sort of like how I had to spend $400 last week on fixing my brakes. I sort of saw it coming. Thankfully, I had the money saved up.
Do things that you’re afraid of.
There’s a lot of intimidating stuff out there in life. Figuring out what to do after college isn’t easy. However, you can easily become bold and start confronting your fears. This is what I’ve been doing over the past few years. Since one my fears was transparency, I’m going to share how I’ve been challenging my fears.
What can you do to crush your fears?
- Open up a conversation with an attractive stranger. This action alone will give you an added boost of confidence. This confidence transcends to other areas of your life.
- Do something that really scares you. I went zip linen when I was in Mexico earlier this year. I was always nervous of adventure. Not any more. I went on a trip with people I didn’t even know!
- Think of the worst case scenario. What’s the worst thing that can possibly happen? Usually nothing all that bad. Anxiety is just re-experiencing failure frequently in advance.
- Set a challenge. I’m currently challenging myself by trying to learn Spanish. This is pushing me to open up conversations with Spanish-speaking folks all around me.
Those are the most powerful moves to make in your 20s. What are you waiting for? It’s never too late to get started. If you’re looking for something to read that will open your eyes up to new opportunities, you need to grab a hold of my newly self-published book on Amazon.
I made sure I invested in myself when I graduated college because it helped me to become a more well rounded person. Both my wife and I made a promise that we were going to travel and do things for ourselves before we settled down and had kids.
Many people view their twenties as a time to make mistakes. I think it is a great time to build something for the future. I saved a lot that gave me opportunities in my thirties. You can still do a lot of interesting things and put aside savings.
Invest in yourself – well said. I had a friend say that real personal growth only happens when you do things that aren’t easy. We often get stuck in a rut where we only do things that come easy to us. I always remember that when considering “new” things.